House Republicans becoming kinder, gentler?

House Republicans have a new strategy: Lay off of President Barack Obama.

Coming out of one of the most brutal stretches of partisan warfare in recent memory, House GOP leaders are pushing a definitive — and surprising — shift in how they deal with a president they’ve so often publicly skewered during the previous 2½ years. The plan is to let Obama’s policies stand on their own, refrain from personal attacks and try to highlight areas where they might find common ground.

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POLITICO 44

It’s a tactical 180-degree turn for the conservative and combative House Republican Conference, which had thrived on the daily partisan warfare with an increasingly unpopular Obama. But as their poll numbers have fallen following the ugly debt-limit battle, Republicans now need to rehabilitate their own image while the president flounders. Yet it remains to be seen whether Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor will get buy in from their rambunctious young majority.

Cantor already reflected a different tone in an interview with POLITICO on Wednesday.

“This is [a] situation where I think it’s very needed right now,” Cantor said about bipartisan cooperation. “And the president needs to join us in that. Because, unfortunately, he’s the one that has been giving these speeches, as late as Monday, that we’re putting politics before country. Again, good people can disagree.”

The new House GOP strategy is manifesting itself in different ways. For instance, Boehner isn’t responding to Obama’s Thursday evening speech — there’s no planned GOP televised response at all — a remarkable move given the national television audience that would tune in to hear a Republican rebuttal.

And in a letter to the president this week, Boehner and Cantor focused on areas where they might forge deals with Obama, such as free-trade agreements, cutting back on federal regulation and changing state-based infrastructure withholding formulas to help rebuild the nation’s roads.

Cantor is also giving a Friday speech in Richmond, Va., to dovetail with an Obama visit to the “River City,” but instead of calling it a rebuttal to the president’s appearance, Cantor’s advisers are billing it as an opportunity to “contrast” views and speak about areas of common ground. Differences will come up, a Cantor aide said, but that shouldn’t make it impossible to reach agreement on areas of common ground.

One GOP leadership aide put it more bluntly: “The guy is already sinking; we don’t need to throw him an anvil.”

However, there are limits to how far GOP leaders can control its tea-party-inspired freshman class and junior lawmakers. At least two House Republicans — Joe Walsh of Illinois and Paul Broun of Georgia — have already declared that they won’t attend Obama’s much heralded speech in the House chamber Thursday evening. The CEO of Gibson Guitar, which was raided by federal agents last month for allegedly improperly importing ebony from India, will be a guest of House Republicans for Obama’s speech. No charges have been filed in that case.

And Senate Republicans, who hope to win control of that chamber during the 2012 elections, aren’t backing down on their Obama-bashing. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) mocked Obama’s initiative to cut federal regulations during a fiery speech Tuesday. “I mean, you don’t lift a single regulation and suddenly claim to be Margaret Thatcher?” McConnell said.

McConnell added that he didn’t believe “any one of us is under any illusion that the American people were particularly eager to see us [Congress] come back, and who could blame them?”

Going forward, top House GOP aides say they are better organized and equipped to deal with governing after eight months in power.

Eric Cantor's best friend? Hurricanes, Floods, Tornadoes, any type of natural disaster. Why? Because he hates Obama and supports anything that will help him reach his ultimate goal, the total destruction of the US economy. This is one EVIL MAN!!!!!!!!! Don't be fooled Obama Eric Cantor is a Judas to the US.

This is America. You're allowed to hate your president. You have the freedom to think your own thoughts, and speak out. without retribution and payback from the government.

That said, the GOP is flopping. It continues to fail at forcefully articulating a broad vision for the favorable economic climate government can provide when it stays within it's legitimate role. The GOPpers are not giving people the lifeline of a meaty conservative/libertarian, centrist national vision, and tying those guiding principles to specific issues like the economy, healthcare, and national security. Maybe they just need to watch more Reagan speeches. He established broad, but very clear, outlines of what government should and shouldn't do, then brought it down to how those ideas should manifest in the issues of the day. These yahoos still aren't doing that.

Kinder, gentler Republicans? Ha. Only the negative polling on Congress and the Republicans even make them consider their image. They have historically NEVER represented the working class yet most of their voters are working class or sycophants to the rich or bigots, let's face it. They cannot stand that somebody they do not like might receive government-funded benefits though it has been the working class bailing out the rich on Wall St.

The best thing that Republicans have going in the upcoming 2012 elections is a weak economy and jobs market which they created (four million jobs lost before Pres. Obama took office). Even the GOP are unenthusiastic about their presidential candidates.

Republicans are NOT the jobs creators. In fact, more jobs were created under Clinton (23 million) than Reagan, Bush I, and Bush, the lesser, combined and at higher tax rates. Other than continuing to extend the $3.7 trillion, 10-12-year tax cuts for the rich which, despite their propaganda, did not create jobs and added to the National Debt, the Republicans have nothing but their standard fallback position or more deregulation and tax cuts which gave us the mess working class America is facing--not the rich, who are doing just fine, thanks to the GOP.

Their Reagan-era to present "trickle-down economy" made the rich filthy rich while trickling on the rest of us. While wages remain stagnant to the 1970s, 80% of income growth went to the top one percent. Fortune 500 CEOS on average make $10.6 million or 400 times the average worker as compared to 40 times in the 1970s. One CEO makes more than all the union leadership from the top to the local levels, so all the ranting from the rabid right-wingers about how private unions with only eight percent of the labor force are wrecking the nation are plain liars. Of course, these are the people who were likely bullied as children and, as adults, merely went along to get ahead or sold their souls for money.

We kinow what they care about and it is not the poor, needy, elderly, minorities, women and children. These are not altruistic people given to working with the poor, particularly latinos or blacks. In fact, they hate them, want to act as welfare police, birth control police, immigration agents, mini-cops, and local militia that enjoy dressing up as soldiers rather than actually serving in the military. They care only about themselves, so get over it.

They will do everything they can to keep the economy down thinking it will benefit them in 2012. They think 2012 will be a repeat of 2010 when the GOPeons were elected by just 25-28% of the 43% that bothered to show up and fueled with massive outside rich and secret corporate money. Thanks to their nation-wide attacks on unions and the working class, there will be a larger voter turnout and, hopefully, the so-called "independents" will see how their vote for the GOP hurt America and working class Americans.

The article clearly states; the Republicans are trying to change a public perception, not help President Obama!

TeamPOLITICO: Sep. 8, 2011 - 12:12 AM EST

It’s a tactical 180-degree turn for the conservative and combative House Republican Conference, which had thrived on the daily partisan warfare with an increasingly unpopular Obama. But as their poll numbers have fallen following the ugly debt-limit battle, Republicans now need to rehabilitate their own image

TeamPOLITICO: Sep. 8, 2011 - 12:12 AM EST

Congressional Republicans also realize their approval ratings are in the tank, and top GOP staffers and political operatives privately acknowledge that their public approval took a serious hit in the debt fight.

I agree with megan, this switch is not a change of heart or a change in position by the GOP; it is simply a change in political strategy. Confronting a seriously damaged brand 14 months before presidential elections, the Republicans are trying to retool their public image and betting on a forgetful population.

Nothing wrong with that: a poltiician's got to do what a politician's got to do to bring home the bacon. It is the population that has to be clear about what serves their own best interests. And if they are not..... ah well.....

Ya, now that they have jacked everything up completely and they have him on the ropes, they are going to trust the short memories of the American people and pretend they had nothing to do with it.

Every waking hour of the GOP's time has been spent saying NO to everything the president has tried to accomplish. Even the policies that the republicans themselves thought up become a big NO! after the President says yes.

Don't trust them. You want the whole country to end up like Wisconsin???????

We have been steadily inching forward ever since President Obama took office. We would have been MUCH further along our path to recovery if the GOP did not stand in the way, attempting to turn back the clock to the 1950's.

Their main objective has been to bury President Obama and make him fail. Even if the country goes under they still cling to that hateful objective. Please wake up and realize that this agenda is being fueled by the Koch brothers and big business. They have nothing for the middle class.

I shudder to think where we would be right now if McCain and Palin were in office.

Eric Cantor's best friend? Hurricanes, Floods, Tornadoes, any type of natural disaster. Why? Because he hates Obama and supports anything that will help him reach his ultimate goal, the total destruction of the US economy

Bowing to the Tea Party will make America a third world nation in our lifetimes, whether they realize it or not.

So, we are to believe no more holding the country hostage? I don't believe it. The reps want full power again, and will do whatever they can to prevent full recovery of the economy, becuase a bad economy is their best hope of regaining full power. It is only what is best for the party and the party donors, not for the majority of Americans.

Listen to what the gop candidates all said - reduce regulations - right - we don't need car safety standards, for example - free market will take care of that - when people died in a Ford Pinto that Ford made an economic (business) decision not to fix, well, they won't buy another Pinto.

Eliminate/reduce corporate taxes - when GE, Exxon-Mobil, EBay and many others already pay ZERO tax to the US? That that is a wish of the Koch Brothers is purely a coincidence.

The GOP & tea party dupes bigots and religious zealots into voting against their economic interests while they foster fascism in the US - which is government collusion with industry.

Why would the congressional Republicans bother with Obama anymore? It's "punching" down for them at this point. The country has tuned Obama out...why shouldn't the congressional Republicans do likewise.

There is only one result from this. Obama will be re-elected for four more years. Looks like the Repoopblicans want this. It's all been figured out. Remember when Obama said some comment in regards to him going back to Chicago in 2016, after his second term? The Repoops want to look nice, the way McCain was nice to Obama and look what happened. This way they look good in front of the media, the ones who really seem to be running and molding the political areana, not the American buffoon, excuse me, the American citizen, whose vote should matter more than 15 minutes of fame.

Obama has removed all doubt that he and his administration are unfit to lead the country. When they attack the Tea Party for not allowing him to bankrupt the economy, those that guzzle that swill just demonstrate the pure ignorance that elected him. Icon's post above is the epitome of the brainwashed fools that are destroying the country by attacking those who would provide the solutions to get us back to sanity.

The wise crack, that John (Bonehead) Boehner said this morning about President Obama job speech that the public wants to watch a football game than listen to the president is wrong!! The problem with the GOP today is, they are missing a word called RESPECT!!!! for the President. Boehner and his sidekick McConnell both should be run out of town.

I'll believe it when I see it. On the belief that a tiger does not change its stripes, I feel certain that the Republicans will continue to undermine the President every chance they get, although they may be sneakier about it than in the past. They have broken their oath of office to work for the American people and they are not going to change. Throw the rascals out.

The wise crack, that John (Bonehead) Boehner said this morning about President Obama job speech that the public wants to watch a football game than listen to the president is wrong!! The problem with the GOP today is, they are missing a word called RESPECT!!!! for the President. Boehner and his sidekick McConnell both should be run out of town. Ever since President Obama was VOTED!!! The President of the United States the Republicans have been against him from the start. Their are several reasons that I see. One being they the GOP are do not like a black man as president, or the senior GOP wanted his seat. Personaly I beleive its the first one. Ever since President Obama has been president the GOP said they want him to be a one timer.. of course the GOP would never admit it.

I am disabled 100% from the U.S. Army and if i showed disrespect to my commanding officer I would be brought up on charges. MR. President I am sorry!! for the dis-respect that comes from the GOP!!!!